CANDIDATES TO BE ASSESSED BY BOARD

Wanted: Chief of Police. College graduate, five years of experience. Salary range $19,286 to $31,350. Reports directly to the city manager.

That ad is running in newspapers and police chief magazines across the country to find a replacement for former police chief Bill Spears.

City Manager Mike Stearman said interviews are scheduled May 27 and he wants to waste no time finding a replacement.

Stearman said he is looking for someone who is even-handed, can communicate well, can get along easily with the public and the 35-member department -- all the usual qualifications a boss seeks in a manager. He is going to get help from other police chiefs in choosing his candidate.

The five top candidates for the job will be run through an all-day session in late May of interviews, role-playing and mock questioning by the press. It's called an assessment center procedure, and it is a thorough and relatively new way of judging law enforcement officers.

The West Central Florida Police Chiefs Association is in charge of giving the tests for this area, said its president, Leesburg Police Chief Jim Brown. The city manager first will sit down with Brown and the five police officers who will be on the board. He will let them know what kind of person he wants running the department.

"The ultimate responsibility is the city manager's," said Brown. "He'll give us the guidelines. He'll emphasize what he wants."

The city manager will decide what he wants in a chief, and the assessment board will try to find the person that most closely fits that description, Brown said.

"They're not competing against each other, but against certain standards," Brown said. "All the candidates will have experience, credentials -- they'll have paid their dues.

"Most important is that they be the kind of person the city manager wants. They should be loyal to the man who hired them."

The officers on the board grade the candidates in various categories, including flexibility, organization, ability to handle stress, and oral and written communication skills, Brown said. The city manger then uses the test scores in deciding who to hire.

The daylong session will be videotaped and led by Chief Lee McGehee of Ocala.

Because of the uproar caused by the firing of former chief Spears and the serious allegations against him, neither Brown nor any other Lake County officers will sit on the board, Stearman said. "We want to avoid any appearance of impropriety," he said.

The only cost of the interviews will be the videotaping, Brown said. The officers sitting on the board will be chosen from the West Central Florida Police Chiefs Association and they will be not be paid for the interviews.